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5 Responses to “Meet The Press”

Oh, thank you! Good to laugh– though always a touch of sadness in my laughter at the situation these days. And I checked my email waiting for my coffee. Was surprised to see you there! Was certain you spent Sunday mornings in church on your knees. You know that’s what I plan to do, Oh, but then – the best laid plans of mice and men, etc. etc. later. NAMASTE!

When I talk about political satire, I’m specifically referencing short or long-form comedy that focuses its weapons on nefarious social and political elites—targeting powerful villains where it hurts them the most and, more important, owning the message. No apologies. No quarter . . . .

It’s difficult to fully encapsulate the importance of the re-emergence of SNL as a force for unrelenting political satire. For the first time in at least a dozen years, Lorne Michaels, along with head writers Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider and naturally this season’s cast, are producing political satire that’s both outrageously funny and totally merciless.

Alec Baldwin’s Agent Orange is the centerpiece of the season. Unlike in previous seasons, Baldwin’s Twitler sketches aren’t simply about an amusingly accurate impersonation. On the contrary, this time around SNL is aiming these sketches directly at Mongo’s fragile, delusional ego and the show is not pulling any punches.

Whether the cast is hitting the shitgibbon’s erratic cluelessness or The Gargoyle’s frantic spin control, cleaning up her boss’s aforementioned erratic cluelessness with her intolerable knack for deflection, or whether it’s The Nazi as a Grim Reaper shadow president, there’s almost nothing about Mongo’s circus sideshow that SNL won’t seize upon. Even the small details make for big statements, like Baldwin’s wearing of a Russian-flag lapel pin during last weekend’s cold open.

[T]he cast and crew are more than aware that Twitler is watching. Rather than being deferential, SNL is deliberately crawling up Mongo’s ass, and the cast knows this is working, thanks to Twitter. With Twitler as the target, there’s a heretofore nonexistent third dimension added to the comedy now. Namely, we know for a fact that Mongo despises it and will absolutely obsess about it for days. We know it damages him.

[T]his third dimension—call it the Twitler effect—gives us a near-perfect illustration of what political satire ought to do: trolling the powerful and despotic, while knowing for certain that it’s having the desired impact. Again, we know he’s watching and it’s destroying him.

Now we have Kate McKinnon’s unbelievably accurate impression of Twitler’s beleaguered spinbot The Gargoyle and, as of last weekend, Melissa McCarthy, too. McCarthy’s unexpected Cabbage Breath sketch was perhaps the only Trump-related bit to overshadow Baldwin’s cold open. It was so unapologetic and so ruthless, there’s perhaps a wishful possibility Mongo could fire Cabbage Breath because of it . . . .

Baldwin, McCarthy, McKinnon and the rest of the troupe are giving America what we so desperately need right now. They’re saying exactly what has to be said and doing so with a direct line to Twitler’s addled brain. Saturday Night Live has the power, now more than ever, to undermine an administration that transparently seeks to suppress objective reality and oppress the people.

The devastating Saturday Night Live caricature of Cabbage Breath that aired over the weekend—in which a belligerent Cabbage Breath was spoofed by a gum-chomping, super soaker-wielding Melissa McCarthy in drag—did not go over well internally at a White House in which looks matter.

More than being lampooned as a press secretary who makes up facts, it was Cabbage Breath’s portrayal by a woman that was most problematic in the president’s eyes, according to sources close to him. And the unflattering send-up by a female comedian was not considered helpful for Cabbage Breath’s longevity in the grueling, high-profile job in which he has struggled to strike the right balance between representing an administration that considers the media the “opposition party,” and developing a functional relationship with the press.

“Twitler doesn’t like his people to look weak,” added a top shitgibbon donor.

Twitler’s uncharacteristic Twitter silence over the weekend about the Saturday Night Live sketch was seen internally as a sign of how uncomfortable it made the White House feel. Sources said the caricature of Cabbage Breath by McCarthy struck a nerve and was upsetting to the press secretary and to his allies, who immediately saw how damaging it could be in Mongo world.

The SNL clip was seen by some in The Monster’s orbit as devastating because it was accurate. “I thought they had Cabbage Breath down pretty good,” said one Twitler ally, who thought Cabbage Breath has been set up in an impossible position.